In the last four years, around 10 Chinese investors backed out of European football, and reports claim that the trend is likely to continue until there are no more Chinese owners left in European football.
China began investing heavily in the sport back in 2014. It was related to the 13th five-year economic plan launched by the Chinese government, which aspired to see China become one of the superpowers in world football, while it was also reported that China would try to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.
Accordingly, the Chinese clubs started signing many superstar football players to make their league more attractive. The likes of Hulk, Oscar, Yannick Carrasco, Graziano Pele, Carlos Tevez were all paid exorbitant wages to join a Chinese club.
However, according to sports economist Simon Chadwick, the Chinese government has now realised that the investments will not bring the returns they would have hoped for. In their 14th five-year economic plan, the Chinese government has asked for money to come back to the country and investments to be made domestically.
“The problem is, it became clear to the Chinese government that there weren’t going to be the financial returns, or the playing returns associated with making such an investment,”
Chadwick told DW.
“(One of the) crucial elements was the government calling for more outbound investments. (The government) the fact (that the country) was almost like a carcass being consumed by the world of football’s vultures.
There was also a shift in government policy towards promoting inbound investments and incentivizing domestic corporations to invest at home,”
he further explained, as per quotes in Yahoo Sports.
The exodus of Chinese investors from European football started with Wang Jianlin, who sold his stakes in Atletico Madrid. Very soon, Ye Jianming followed suit and sold his stakes in the Czech club Slavia Prague.
Reports also suggest that China’s Suning Holdings Group, who currently own majority stakes at Inter Milan, are also looking to pull out of European football by selling their stakes.
